


Being Bold Has Its Advantages

by afteriwake



Series: Deserving [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two weeks ago Greg kissed her. Then he apologized. But Molly is tired of feeling like she doesn’t deserve love, and this time she’s going to be bold and try to find some happiness, even if she still isn’t sure she deserves it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Bold Has Its Advantages

**Author's Note:**

> My first entry for the Afterglow Fest at sherlockmas on Livejournal, answering the prompt "We accept the love we think we deserve."

Molly didn’t think she deserved love. She didn’t think she deserved to be happy. Not because she was a horrible person. She wasn’t; she was far from horrible. But she didn’t think much of herself. She had had a few boyfriends over the years and countless first dates that never led to a second, and every rejection chipped away at her. She was still young, but she had given up on ever finding love, the kind of love like her parents had had, the kind of love where you knew that no one else was going to fill up the space they had in your life so perfectly.

When she was young she had had the dreams of being a princess and meeting her prince when she wasn’t running around observing things as a budding scientist. As she got older and her view of the world changed, she decided she would be happy just falling in love, meeting the perfect man for her and marrying him and living a happy and fulfilling life. She held onto that dream for a long while, far longer than she probably should have. She was not the type to get a happy ending, and year after year of rejection and loneliness ate at her until she gave up that dream.

She focused on the wrong men, always wanting someone who didn’t want her. Sherlock was the worst, but Jim…Jim was too. Jim just wanted to use her to get close to Sherlock. Jim had used her in a way no one else had used her before. Oh, sure, she’d been used. She knew a good chunk of the dates she’d been on had been to make someone else jealous, though why the woman would be jealous of her she’d never been able to fathom. But Jim had used her to get close to someone to hurt them, and it still made her skin crawl.

Sherlock simply hadn’t acknowledged her as much. It wasn’t until he wanted to fake his death that he noticed her, appreciated her. But by then the crush had faded. She knew if Sherlock was going to be anything it would simply be a friend. She was his secret keeper, his confidant and yes, maybe his friend. And she was okay with that. Still, the remnants of the crush remained, buried deep down in her heart, and every once in a while it would flare up, now that he had returned.

She’d never had any type of romantic feelings for John. He was always a friend, and over the years she had been relegated to a shoulder to cry on. Keeping Sherlock’s secret was hard, and she distanced herself from him to keep from lying to his face. He had been just as angry at her as he had been at Sherlock when the deception was revealed, but things were better now. She had her friend back, and she was happy for that.

But then, there was Greg. She didn’t know what kind of relationship they had. She had watched as his marriage imploded after that fateful Christmas party, and watched as he fell down in the dumps. She’d offered kind words, encouragement, then offered the occasional drink after work. She learned more about him over pints than she had ever known before, and she wondered what on earth that woman had been thinking to pick someone other than him. He was a good man, strong and sensible with a hidden passionate streak.

One night they’d had a bit too much to drink, and he had kissed her. She hadn’t felt anything like the jolt that ran through her in a long time. She’d actually given up on feeling a spark with any man years before. If she had been entirely truthful with herself she’d have thought all she’d ever get from any man was a date where they went Dutch and subpar drunken shag, and it had been years since she had even expected that. So a spark like that was unexpected.

Of course, sobriety brings about regret sometimes, and the next morning he apologized and said it would never happen again, which wasn’t what she wanted at all. She wanted to kiss him right there in her office, show him that she had liked it, wanted more, but she hadn’t. It was two weeks later and now she was kicking herself for not being bold. But it wasn’t in her nature to be bold, and she had known she was going to regret it.

But two weeks of that night running through her dreams had made her angry at herself. She was tired of regrets, tired of thinking she didn’t deserve to be happy. She did. She deserved to have her true love, she deserved to have her prince, her knight in shining armor. She deserved a happy ever after just like all the stories she read and romantic movies she watched to torture herself. She deserved it, and by God she was going to get it. So she was dialing a familiar number and waiting.

“Lestrade,” he said after three rings.

“Are you available for dinner tonight?” she asked, holding her breath afterwards in anticipation of a rebuttal.

There was a pause. “Yeah, after six. Provided I don’t get a case, at any rate.”

She let out her breath. “Okay. Good. There’s a place near your work I like to go to sometimes. Why don’t I pick you up at six and we get something to eat, all right?”

“Sure. What kind of food is it?”

“Mexican.”

“Haven’t had that in a while. Could be good. I’ll meet you outside at six, then.”

“All right. See you then, Greg.” She hung up and smiled to herself. Sometimes, being bold could pay off. Now she just needed to _stay_ bold.

\--

He was out there waiting, in a slightly rumpled suit with a trench coat on over that. She’d always thought he looked dashing, quite like a slightly silver fox, but tonight she just thought he looked really good. Jim had looked a bit like a slob and Sherlock always looked so polished, and Greg was somewhere in between. He looked comfortable, and she had always liked that about him.

“Hello, Molly,” he said as she walked up to him.

“Hello, Greg,” she said with a bright smile. “It’s only about three blocks up.”

“Diego’s, right?” he asked. She nodded. “A couple of the DIs went there this afternoon. I could smell the carne asada from my office.”

She chuckled slightly. “I usually get the fish burrito when I go in.”

“That sounds good too,” he said with a grin. God, she loved his grin. It was wide and warm and welcoming, unlike the fake grin that Sherlock pasted on his face when he wanted to try and get something from someone or the feral grin Jim had had when he thought she wasn’t looking. Any time he flashed it at her she felt a curious warmth spring up inside her.

They walked towards the restaurant, chatting easily. Conversation between them was always easy, even after her role in Sherlock’s fake suicide had come out. He had accepted it so much more easily then John had, and for that she had been grateful. He had said she did what needed to be done to keep all of them safe, just like Sherlock had, and that was that. It was just another reason she preferred him to most of them men who had been in her life in the last few years.

He opened the door for her when they got there and she stepped inside, savoring the warmth on a cold winter night. He followed her in and they seated themselves as was the custom there. A few moments later a waitress came in with menus, and they ordered drinks: a bottle of Corona for him and a strawberry margarita for her.

“Thanks for calling me up,” Greg said as soon as their drinks were delivered. He squeezed the lime slice that had come with his drink into the bottle, then used a straw to push it down the bottle’s neck into the beer. “We haven’t spent as much time together since…you know.”

She took a long drink of her drink, steeling up her nerves. “About that,” she said. “I didn’t mind. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if you did it again.”

He had been about to take a sip of his beer when his jaw dropped and he slowly lowered his bottle back to the table. “But I thought you liked Sherlock.”

She shook her head. “I did. Years ago. I mean, we’re close. I might be almost as close to him as John is, after everything, but he’s just a friend. Nothing more. We wouldn’t be a good fit anyway, and besides…” She paused. “I’m rambling. I’m sorry.”

“But why me? I’m divorced and I’m old and I’m not a good catch.”

“You’re a good man, Greg. Your ex-wife was a colossal idiot for not seeing it. I mean, if I was married to you I would be madly in love with you, even after years had gone by, and I wouldn’t care if our schedules didn’t always sync up or if you had to stay out all night for a case or even if you had to drag Anderson along for a lunch date or something to discuss a case.” She paused again and then sighed. “And there I go rambling again.”

He grinned slightly. “I actually think it’s quite cute when you ramble.”

“Really?” she asked, grinning back at him.

His grin got wider. “I just thought you fancied Sherlock and I was just going to be a friend. And I didn’t mind being a friend, but over the years I’d kind of hoped I might be…more. And then when I kissed you and we went so long without speaking as much I thought I’d blown my chance.”

“No. No, you didn’t blow it at all.” Hesitantly she reached over and put her hand on top of the hand he had set on the table. “If you want, we can consider this our first date.”

“I’d like that,” he said with a nod.

“Great,” she said, her smile getting so wide she thought she might hurt herself. “Hopefully this date will go better than the last few I’ve been on.”

He turned his hand so he was holding hers and she could see his grin had gotten wider too. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Good,” she said, and for once she was sure that maybe she was getting the love she deserved after all.


End file.
